You Just Might Be a Banana Republican If...

With a Tip of the Hat to Jeff Foxworthy

A few weeks ago, I posted an article titled “John Bolton and the Fall of the Banana Republicans.” In the article I argued that “RINO” does not capture the essence of a Banana Republican (BR) because ideology is not the relevant variable here. No, BRs are the kind of intriguers, schemers, back-stabbers, and wafflers you would find in any “developing nation.” They would rather watch the nation devolve into the chaotic ooze of a banana republic than stand up and fight the obvious injustice around them.

For further clarification, I thought I would borrow the construct pioneered by comedian Jeff Foxworthy whose classification of the genus “redneck” depends more on specific behaviors than on a theoretical definition. Says Foxworthy, for example, “If you name your son ‘Dale Jr.’ and your name’s not ‘Dale’,” you just might be a redneck.

What follows is a preliminary list of BRs in their natural habitats. The reader’s observations are most welcome.

If Donald Trump is the only president unworthy of being your buddy, you just might be a Banana Republican.

If the media called you a “maverick,” and you thought it meant something other than ‘useful idiot,’ you just might be a Banana Republican. (But thank you for your service nonetheless).

If you ever took a knee for George Floyd and that knee wasn’t on George Floyd, you just might be a Banana Republican.

If you’ve ever even thought to say upon Trump’s election, “I didn’t leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me,” you are a Banana Republican in need of a new speechwriter.

If, after watching Trump get ousted in a coup, you lost 90 pounds and claimed you had no designs on his old job, you are textbook Banana Republican.

If you designated the events of January 6 an “insurrection”—attention Mr. Romney and Mr. Bush—before the OC gas had even settled at the Capitol, you just might be a Banana Republican who doesn’t know what an insurrection is.

If all of your neckties feature some pattern of yellow and blue, you are a globalist Banana Republican.

If you have an action photo of Thomas Crooks on your man cave wall, you are a Banana Republican with potentially terminal TDS.

If you went on CNN after the raid on Mar-a-Lago and said piously, “No one is above the law,” you are a Banana Republican with a cliche´problem.

If Simon & Schuster offered you a deal to write a book about President Trump, you are a Banana Republican with a good agent.

If you took a stroll with the incumbent Democrat president down one of your state’s boardwalks a week before the presidential election and didn’t try to trip him, you just might be a Banana Republican.

If you participated in a gay pride parade as something other than a heckler, you just might be a Banana Republican.

If you bragged about having gotten your COVID boosters, you just might be a Big Pharma variety Banana Republican.

If you are featured on CNN after you’ve left office, you are a tool and a Banana Republican.

If you prided yourself in 2024 about voting for Republicans “down ballot” but not for the top of the ticket, you just might be a Banana Republican.

If your years of deep state service can be calculated by the number of your chins, you are a Banana Republican emeritus.

If, as AG, you dismissed claims that the 2020 election was something other than a swindle, without investigating those claims, you are definitely a Banana Republican.

If you thought Nikki Haley was “hot,” you are probably a gay Banana Republican.

If, as Speaker of the House, you refused to appear with your party’s nominee a month before the election, you are a Banana Republican’s Banana Republican.

If you campaigned for a candidate who had not gotten a single primary vote, ever, and did so to “save democracy,” you are too much of a Banana Republican even for the Banana Republicans.